


The Great Bagel Heist

by WinterDreams



Category: Red vs. Blue
Genre: Bagel AU, Blood Gulch Chronicles, Fluff, Gen, One Shot, Team Dynamics, honestly i have no idea how to tag this, shenanigans involving the theft of bagels
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-09
Updated: 2016-01-09
Packaged: 2018-05-12 12:23:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,048
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5665966
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WinterDreams/pseuds/WinterDreams
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Caboose thinks Santa is the one responsible for the baking supplies showing up at Blue base, and no amount of frustrated explanations from Church will change his mind. </p><p> </p><p>Or an AU that started with the headcanons of Tex really loving bagels and Caboose making the best bagels ever, and then spiraled into a series of drabbles from there.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Great Bagel Heist

**Author's Note:**

> For my friend who I recently dragged into RvB hell and has decided to repay me with prompts and headcanons like this. I hope this makes you smile.

Caboose thinks Santa is the one responsible for the baking supplies showing up at Blue base, and no amount of frustrated explanations from Church will change his mind.

“Santa only comes once a year!” Church protests when they wake up one morning and find yet another new batch of supplies in their base kitchen. “And it’s the middle of the summer!”  

“It’s _always_ the middle of the summer in this fucking place,” Tucker points out, yawning as he stumbles over to the couch.

“Tucker, unless you’re gonna help me, shut the fuck up.”  

“Do not worry, Church,” Caboose says while he looks through all of the supplies with a grin.

He begins pulling all of them out of the cupboards and Tucker knows by this point to wait until the larger man is done with his task before entering the kitchen. Disaster and Church’s lectures shouted in a high-pitched voice have occurred one too many times when the two teammates try to cook at the same time.

“I’m sure Santa will bring something for you too next time,” Caboose continues. “And I will share all the bagels I make until then!”

“That’s not the _point,_ Caboose.”

Tucker tunes them both out as Church continues to argue with Caboose. The baking supplies, Church points out, don’t come once a year like Santa brings presents once a year at Christmas time, but instead show up every couple weeks. When Caboose asks who Church thinks keeps bringing the supplies, Church will only ever say Command must have dropped them off, even though there are no requisition forms for such a request and Vic had no idea what they were talking about when they asked him about it the first time it happened.

Eventually, Church throws his hands up in the air and stalks out of the base, just like every other time the baking supplies have shown up. Caboose gets to work on making the bagels he always makes with the supplies, singing a loud and painfully off-key song that sounds made-up.

Tucker simply stretches out across the lumpy brown couch, loathe to put on his helmet and leave the base quite yet. The sound of banging pots joins Caboose’s cheerful voice, but bagels are the one thing Caboose can make without setting the entire base on fire so Tucker doesn’t bother looking over.

As the sounds wash over him, Tucker contemplates telling Church he knows the one bringing the supplies is Tex. The baking supplies only show up after Caboose has been upset by something, but they didn’t start showing up until Tex became an irregular but official member of Blue team. And Tex _always_ returns to the base when Caboose makes a fresh batch of bagels, often as soon as the first ones are out of the oven and before anyone can bother sending her a message. Sometimes she takes a bagel and then disappears again from the canyon without saying a single word to any of them.

Tucker imagines her Freelancer status comes with all types of benefits, baking supplies for bagels included. That, or she just flat-out robs a store. No bakery would stand a chance against her Freelancer technology and all the bone-crushing skills that she possesses simply by virtue of being Tex.

All Tucker had needed to do was logically consider all those facts and he easily realized who was leaving them supplies.

Also, he had literally run into Tex at three am one night when her cloaking wasn’t working and she was carrying all the supplies. His nose hurt for a week from her punch but as Tucker listens to Church shout something unintelligible and insulting from outside the base, he decides the pain was worth it for knowing something Church doesn’t.

***

“Are you fucking kidding me? I leave for one fucking morning and none of you assholes saves me even one!”

Tucker sticks his head out of his room and spots Church standing in the middle of the kitchen. Church glares at the counter where yet another batch of bagels were cooling off that morning, nothing but crumbs left on the steel surface.

“The fuck you yelling about now?” Tucker asks. He takes one step into the common room, the entire main level of the base one massive open-concept room consisting of the sparse recreational room and kitchen.

“The fact that I’m living with a bunch of selfish pigs.”

Across the room, the door leading to Tex’s room creaks open and she glances between the two of them.

“What,” she says, and Tucker instinctively takes a step backwards at the flat tone of her voice, “the fuck are you yelling about now?”

Church simply turns to glare at her rather than the counter.

“There’s no bagels left _again_! Caboose just made some this morning, I wasn’t even gone the whole morning, and they’re all fucking gone already. Seriously, what the fuck?”

“Oh,” Tex says, and moves into the common room.

She and Tucker both glance at the other rather than back into their rooms where both have taken to stashing bagels. The beginnings of a smirk tugs at the Tex’s lips, and Tucker lets his bedroom door swing shut at the sight. “Oh yeah, Tucker was just telling me he saw Caboose eat like seven after you left, right, Tucker?”

“Oh yeah, totally,” Tucker replies, fighting back a grin as Church begins to look between the two of them with a scowl. “He was really chowing down on them when I woke up, there was barely any left for me.”

“But hey, he’s gotta get that strength to lift tanks from somewhere, right?” Tex leans against the wall of the kitchen, arms crossing loosely over her chest, and Tucker takes a few more steps forward so he’s standing in the kitchen with the both of them.

“Maybe if he eats enough he’ll be able to lift the whole base!” Tucker adds, trying to imitate Tex’s mask of nonchalance. Church’s scowl only deepens as he continues to swing his gaze back and forth between them for a silent moment.

“You guys are just fucking with me now, aren’t you,” he says, and Tucker places a hand over his chest in mock hurt.

“Us?” Tex asks, voice raising slightly in pitch.

“Mess with _you_?”

“ _Never_.”

“I fucking hate both of you,” Church declares, and Tucker stops trying to keep the laughter from spilling from his lips. “Seriously, I’m gonna go find Caboose and hopefully when we get back you’ll both have died from mysterious causes. Like, a poisonous gas leak or a fire or a fucking explosion.”

“You’ll need Caboose for the explosion!” Tucker calls after him as he storms out of the base. The walls of the base block out Church’s response and Tucker glances over at Tex, smirk stretching fully across her face.

“Dibs not cleaning up the mess,” she announces, and then slips back into her room.

Her smirk only grows when Tucker swears at her.

***

The periodic sound of a sniper rifle going off echoes throughout the canyon, but the only other noise that signals an ongoing conflict is Church’s loud curses.

“Come on, Tex,” Church shouts as another bullet pierces the rock he’s hiding behind. He’s not sure how he managed to get to the rock so fast, most of the past two minutes a blur of panic triggered as soon as he saw Tex’s pissed expression and she levelled the sniper rifle at him as she declared she needed target practice. “It was just a fucking bagel!”

“It was my last bagel,” Tex replies, and Church presses harder against the rock as if he can meld into it if he tries hard enough.

“I didn’t fucking know that!”

“I _heard_ Tucker tell you it was my last one.”

“I thought he said it was his last one!”

“Then why was your response ‘with all the money she’s stolen from me, I could buy an entire bakery’?”

“Well that’s–”

The edge of the rock near Church’s left shoulder explodes and his words are cut off by his own yelp. The rest of the canyon stays quiet, Caboose and Tucker wisely choosing to stay inside the base after Tex chased Church out of it.

“Is a bagel really more important than me, Tex?” Church shouts as loud as he can, not daring to peek out from around the rock.

Five seconds of silence passes and then another bullet slams into the rock.

“ _Wow ok_ , I want a divorce!”

“You were never married, fuckface!” Tucker yells from somewhere near Blue base and Church doesn’t even question how his traitorous teammate heard that. “You’re not even dating right now!”

“At least I’ve dated someone recently!” Church yells back at him, momentarily considering the risk of flashing Tucker the middle finger.

“I have too.”

“The rocks don’t fucking count.”

“Up yours, asshole!”

They add a second rule to the list of Blue team rules after that.

***

“Church!”

All three male members of Blue team look up quickly at the sound of Tex’s angry voice as she comes stomping out of her room. Church and Tucker shoot upright from where they were lounging on the couch, and Caboose tilts his gaze up from where he’s sprawled on the floor at the base of the couch reading a picture book.

“If this is gonna lead to a beat-down, can you wait for me to get my helmet so I can videotape all this?” Tucker asks, and Church kicks him as Tex sways to an abrupt halt in front of them.

“Where did you put my bagels?” she demands, and Church sits even straighter at that.

“They’re missing?”

“No, they’re doing the Macarena in my room,” she says, and Tucker winces at the sheer level of sarcasm dripping from her voice.

“Well I didn’t fucking touch them,” Church snaps at her. “Why the fuck would I after you used me as _target practice_ last time I went near your stash?”

“Because you’re as idiotic and as slow a learner as everyone else in this canyon.”

“Tucker did it.”

“Shut _up_ , Caboose,” Tucker says as Church and Tex’s gazes shoot to him. “Why the fuck would I take them when I have my own stash?”

“You _both_ have your own stashes?”

“No,” Tucker replies instinctively at the same time Tex suggests,

“Because yours is running low?”

“I never run low on anything–bow chicka bow wow!”

“That one made absolutely no sense,” Church says, and Tucker sticks his tongue out at him.

“Show me,” Tex demands, and after a roll of his eyes, Tucker gets up to show her where he keeps all his bagels in his messy room.

“What the fuck,” Tucker says only a moment later when he finds only dust under his bed where there should be bagels. He rocks back onto his knees and then stands to face Tex. “Who the fuck took my food?”

“You’re both disgusting!” Church shouts from the common room. “Seriously, I expect that kind of shit from Grif, not my own teammates.”

“They were in bags, jackass!” Tucker yells back. He trails after Tex as she stalks into the common room and then begins to pace around the kitchen. “It was perfectly sanitary.”

“There’s nothing sanitary about your room, Tucker.”

“Caboose,” Tex interrupts before the two can start bickering. The bigger man has been quietly watching all of them, but he looks at Tex’s helmeted face when she says his name. “Did you take our bagels?”

“You think _Caboose_ managed to sneak into your room?” Church asks but Tex just ignores him and waits for Caboose’s answer.

“Oh no, stealing is bad and so is going into your room!”

“Did you help the Reds take them?”

“The Reds?” Tucker and Church repeat.

Church lets loose a few notes of incredulous laughter but quickly falls quiet when they notice the sudden hunch of Caboose’s shoulders. His gaze drops to his picture book and he refuses to look at any of them.

“Caboose?” Tex calls, and he starts as if he’s forgotten any of them were in the room. “Did you let the Reds into the base?”

“Oh no no,” Caboose answers, words tripping over each other in his haste. “Church got very mad last time I let them in and I would not want to make Church mad again.”

“I’m pretty sure you make him angry every time you open your mouth,” Tucker snorts, but then quiets when Tex turns to glance at him. He can feel the force of her glare even with her helmet obscuring her face.

“Okay, Caboose,” Tex says, more patience in her voice than any time she speaks with Tucker. “Did you play the sneaking game with Grif recently?”

“The _what?_ ” Church demands, and Tucker drops onto the couch. Caboose gives each of them a grin, pushing himself into a sitting position in his excitement to explain his game to them.

“Oh yes, I love Grif’s sneaking game! It is very hard sometimes because there are a lot of Reds, but I’m very good at it. I managed to get fifteen whole bagels to him last time!”

“Wait, what?” Church asks at the same time Tex nods before turning on her heel to march out of the base.

Church and Tucker share a single look before scrambling off the couch and running after her. Caboose follows them half a second later, heat pressing down on them as they follow Tex across the large expanse of dry dirt and sparse grass toward the Red base.  

“Would you please explain what’s happening?” Tucker asks, falling into step on Tex’s left side with Church on her right.

“Caboose has been sneaking bagels to Grif for months,” Tex says in the same tone she might comment on the way the canyon is always hot.

“He likes every kind except for raisin!” Caboose pipes up. “Sometimes he asks for ones for Simmons too and he likes cinnamon ones best. I can’t let anyone else see me and the bagels need to still be warm and–oh.”

They all glance over their shoulders to see Caboose frowning. Nobody but Church and Tex are wearing their helmets, and Tucker has half a second to contemplate his own stupidity before Caboose speaks again.

“I’m not supposed to tell anyone or I lose,” Caboose realizes, and Tucker rolls his eyes at the dejected expression on his face.

“You’re not supposed to be giving the Reds supplies in the first place!” Church screeches.

“But Grif was hungry. And he gave me cookies.”

“That doesn’t–you can’t–we have–Tex! Why didn’t you do anything about this?”

“Why the fuck would I do anything about it?” She keeps striding forward, gaze locked onto the Red base growing nearer with each second. “It’s not in my job description to tell you where everyone wanders off to.”

“But you _do_ know where everyone wanders off to?” Tucker asks.

“Of course. You always come crying to me if anyone of you gets hurt or captured, I need to be prepared.”

“Don’t come any closer, ya dirty blue!” Sarge’s gruff shout cuts off any further conversation as they come to a halt a few feet away from the entrance of Red base.

Sarge and Donut stand on top of the base, guns trained on the Blues. Caboose waves to them but stops when Church snaps at him.

“Truce,” Church shouts up at them.

“What?”

“Truce, we want a truce. We just want to talk to Grif.”

“Grif?” Sarge lowers his shotgun an inch. “You sure you just want to talk? Cuz there’s some repairs I need to look at it if you wanted to take him out around back, just you and your guns and Grif.”

“I lost the sneaking game,” Caboose yells before Church can reply. “I need to tell him about the bagels.”

“The what?”

“Just let us in to talk or I’ll let Tex do whatever the fuck she wants to you guys,” Church says, and Tex snorts.

“You’ll _let_ me?”

“Do you want your bagels back or not?” Church asks. “Cuz I gotta say, I really do not give a _fuck_ but I’m pretty sure it will be less cleaning to just talk to them. All you gotta do is look at Grif and he’ll talk right away.”  

“Fine,” Tex says as Sarge turns to Donut and they discuss the proposal in hushed whispers. Caboose hums to himself and Tucker wipes at the sweat on his forehead as they all wait for the Reds to finish their discussion.

“Look we just want to fucking talk to him,” Church says, and Tex stays still beside him. “No tricks, no bargaining, you don’t have to give us anything–”

“I think you should be giving _us_ something if we’re letting your poisonous souls into our base.”

“Oh, as if. I’m not–”

“How about I give you the gift of a continued life?” Tex suggests, one hand moving to the rest on the butt of her gun.

Sarge considers her for a long moment before grunting and heading back inside the base with Donut. The Blues take that as their cue to enter, trudging down the ramp into the base. The general lay-out is the same as their own, an open concept common room and kitchen greeting them as soon as they reach the bottom of the ramp. The walls of the Red base possess a coherent colour scheme with each wall covered in one colour connected to the soldiers’ armour, whereas the walls in Blue team base are covered with patches of different colours with no pattern beyond the one in Caboose’s mind.

Grif and Simmons slowly come out of their rooms without their helmets on when Sarge calls, though Grif looks ready to head right back into his room when he catches sight of the others. Tucker offers him a grin as Tex stalks over to the larger man.

“Where are my bagels?” she asks.

“I’m sorry, Grif, I lost the game,” Caboose says sadly while the rest of Red team looks confused.

“Caboose has been delivering _our_ bagels to Grif for months apparently,” Church explains, and Sarge whirls on him.

“Grif! I always knew you were a dirtbag, but collaborating with our enemy for something as useless as food–why that’s disgusting even for you.”

“Simmons took them too,” Grif says quickly, and Simmons glares at his teammate.

“Grif!”

“Where are they?” Tex cuts in before the Reds can start arguing with each other, Grif simply shrugging his shoulders in response to Simmons’ outraged yelp of his name. Everyone turns their attention to Tex when they hear the danger skirting just beneath the layer of calm in her voice.

“Uh, in my stomach?” Grif answers, spacing out his words with worried glances at the rest of Blue team.

Tex doesn’t respond verbally, instead strides toward the door Grif came out from, stalking into the room despite Grif’s protesting squawks from behind her. Everyone presses close to the doorway and then all stumble back when Tex whirls around with Grif’s bedsheet in hand.

She shakes the sheet while staring at Grif, and they all watch as various coloured crumbs fall from the sheet to the clothing scattered across the sticky floor.

“That means nothing,” Grif says as the others make varying noises of disgusts in response to the state of Grif’s room.

“It’s true,” Simmons adds, though he still scowls at Grif. “Caboose brought us bagels over a couple weeks ago and Grif never cleans his sheets. Those crumbs could be years old.”

“I don’t believe you,” Tex replies, and takes a step toward Grif.

“Oh come _on–_ ”

“I took them.”

Everyone turns at the sound of Donut’s steady voice. He doesn’t waver underneath their gazes, standing tall in his full armour as he looks from Tex to Grif.

“What?” Tucker says, a question echoed by everyone on Red team. Tex stands still and watches Donut as he places a hand on hip.

“Grif never shared any!” he explains, managing to sound like a pouting child and disappointed parent at the same time. “He never even told me he was getting them delivered. What else was I supposed to do?”

“So _you’re_ the one who managed to sneak into Tex’s room?” Church asks, bits of shocked amusement sneaking into his voice as he glanced at the silent Tex. “And Tucker’s, I guess, though that’s really not that big of an accomplishment.”

“It was easy. I got a lot of practice back home, let me tell you!”

“Please don’t,” Church interrupts at the same time Caboose gasps.

“I think I understand now,” Caboose says, and Tucker groans as the bigger man whirls toward Donut. “You want to play the sneaking game too, Mr. Muffin!”

“There will be no more sneaking for anyone,” Sarge protests, but Donut moves closer to Caboose and his voice somehow becomes twice as cheerful as normal.

“I would love to play the sneaking game too, Caboose.”

“Jesus Christ,” Grif groans, and before the conversation can continue for another hour in endless circles, Tex leans into Donut’s personal space.

 “Show me where the fucking bagels are or this time I’ll stick a dozen grenades to your head.”

“Holy shit, Tex,” Church exclaims while Donut simply cocks his head to the side.

“I want my bagels!” Tex tells Church without looking away from Donut.

“Well alright,” he says. “Since Caboose is going to give me more and Grif has learned his lesson, I might as well share with everyone. The more the merrier!”

“Wait, I was supposed to have learned something there?” Grif mock whispers to Simmons as they all follow Donut outside the base.

They make it to the top of the hill behind Red base leading into the caves before anyone thinks to question Donut on why exactly he stored the bagels in the caves.

“If I’d left them in the base, Grif would have just found them!” Donut says, and everyone pauses for a single second before nodding in agreement.

They only travel a minute into the caves with Tex walking beside Donut and everyone else behind them in a staggered group before Donut comes to a halt. They all peer around him to catch a glimpse of the mound of objects resting by one crumbling rock wall. For a moment no one says anything, all staring at the black spots covering the plastic containers Donut has neatly stacked all the bagels in.

“Wait,” Donut says with a frown just as Tucker’s brain realizes the black spots aren’t some irregular rock. “Are those _–_ ”

“Bats!”

Grif’s screech echoes off the walls and suddenly the black masses are swirling through the air around them. Everyone throws themselves to the ground as Grif screams, and the sound of beating wings accompanies his noise of distress. Tucker gags on dirt while little puffs of air stirred by the bats’ frantic escape hit his armour.

Tucker lifts his head a moment later, the only sound now coming from Grif. Before anyone can get a word out, Grif sprints from the cave faster than Tucker has ever seen anyone on the Red team run before. They can hear his screams of _no no no_ even after he’s outside.

Tex and Donut are the first to climb to their feet and examine the containers that have been opened, bits and pieces of the bagels spilling out into the dirt. Church’s laughter breaks the ensuing silence a second later.

“Oh my god,” he gets out between bursts of laughter. Tex stays standing with her hands on her hips but the force of Church’s laughter keeps him on his knees, arms wrapped around his armoured sides. “How does it feel to be fucking owned by a bunch of bats, Tex?”

Church keeps laughing even once Tex slowly steps onto his helmet and shoves it down into the ground. Simmons sighs and then leaves the cave in search of Grif while Donut and Sarge start collecting all of the containers.

“Hey, Caboose?” Tucker says, getting up and tugging his teammate toward the entrance of the cave. “Let’s take a break from bagels for a while.”

Three weeks later, Caboose drags all of Blue team with him on his delivery of bagels to Red team.

**Author's Note:**

> If you were expecting a hardcore plot or logic, I'm sorry. 
> 
> Hope you enjoyed!


End file.
